Chapter Three

A Mission Changed

By the time Zanathir was at the window, Kysin was passing the hero's guild to the north. His passing was fleet and silent as the wind from the southern islands. He quickly noticed the blue dragon chained outside the guild, it being the pet of the guildmaster Achilles. But his mission was not with dragons or heroes; it was with an old man...

As he sped northwards, the sounds of war became more apparent. He reached the town of Burthorpe; a quick glance telling him that the noobs had taken over the city. He slowed his pace slightly, and silently jogged up the side of the lower mountain range, that divides the troll home from the wilderness. Poisoned darts in hand - and stolen pendant around his neck, he sped upwards, a deadly shadow against the waning sun.

He reached the point in the mountains directly above troll plateau, commonly known as such for it was a high, flat area inhabited by trolls. He slid down the side of the mountain and landed, cat-like, on troll plateau.

Sprinting to the southern edge of the plateau, he dropped to his belly and listened. Behind him, there were only snores. "Stupid, stupid trolls" he thought. Below him, there was silence. He knew that he was too far above Burthorpe to hear anything quieter than a major explosion or a cannon, but the silence was re-assuring anyway. With great deliberation, he lowered himself over the edge.

In the growing darkness, he slid downwards. But no master spy or assassin is such without great knowledge of the terrain. Kysin had thoroughly explored everywhere in Runescape, including this slope. He knew every pebbly area, every jutting-out rock, everything. Even in the gathering darkness he found his way down silently.

He paused for a moment on a protruding rock, overlooking the Burthorpe castle. He listened, and looked for the telltale flame torch. Nothing. Good. No guards on this side of the wall.

He crouched, and then leaped. His jump carried him over the parapet of the castle and safely onto the walls. He allowed himself less than a second's recovery before he sprinted towards the nearest tower. Gaining it, he rested in the shadows it created. He rested, and listened.

On the opposite wall from him, the wall facing the noobs camp, he could hear the ceaseless pacing of the imperial black guards. He edged closer to the wall parapet. The castle courtyard was filled with makeshift tents, and siege weapons.

He could see a large catapult that had obviously been broken, for repairmen were fixing it. Kysin inwardly groaned, though none could tell he did such from his outer expressions. What could break a catapult that size? The damage wasn't done by fire, and any swords the noobs possessed weren't nearly strong enough to bash up a catapult. Only one weapon could've done damage like that. The noob's cannon was here.

Apart from the damaged catapult, there seemed to be no other casualties and the imperial army seemed active, non-entranced. So... the noobs cannon was here, but their wise old man either wasn't here or wasn't entrancing the black guards.

Weighing up the options, Kysin came to the conclusion that the wise old man wasn't here, or else all the black guards would be in a trance by now. Two full days of the Burthorpe siege had already passed... So where was the old man? "Not here," he thought. "And I've gotta be back before sunrise, so time to search for him I don't have."

So Kysin concluded that he couldn't get the wise old man at all, instead, to go for the cannon. He figured that the cannon was just about as damaging as a wise old man. He hadn't seen a demonstration of the old man's powers...

So now, Kysin had a new target. He snaked over the back of the wall parapet, and landed on the mountainside he had just left. He then headed eastwards, towards the blacksmith. Within the blacksmith's place he should find all the necessary items for permanently dismantling a cannon.

He traveled lightly on the mountainside until he was facing the back wall of the blacksmith's house. He stopped, and listened. Inside he heard snores. Behind him, the way he'd come, he heard low talking. Guard noobs watching the castle. He dropped inside the blacksmith, and grabbed a toolkit from behind the door.

Even if one of the noobs guarding had turned around, they would've seen naught. Kysin's true element of invisibility was fully here now: dark of night.

As a shadow, a shade, the same tone as his surroundings Kysin crept through the noobs camp. He knew Burthorpe well, and knew where the noobs would likely have their cannon stored: in the garden behind the toad and chicken pub.

He made for the garden, and dropped on his belly in the shade of a makeshift tent. By habit, he listened as looking would do him to no avail in the dark. He heard the regular camp sounds, light talking, fires crackling, weapons rattling and snoring. Anything else? Anything abnormal? No. This should've been comforting, but it wasn't.

Zanathir had described the army as more than this. But, the small feeling of unease wouldn't go away even though there was no reason why it should be present.

Kysin counted deliberately to nine, and sprinted towards the garden. He pounced over the fence landing on his hands and feet so as to minimize noise. He dashed to the cannon and paused. No one had seen, heard, or otherwise noticed he had passed.

Or so it seemed even to his acute senses. But the uneasy feeling was steadily growing. Something wasn't right. There were only a few noobs guarding the frontlines facing the castle, there were none guarding the cannon, most noobs seemed to be relaxing.

Either the noobs were really stupid, or they were working on a clever plan to make their enemies think they were stupid. And Kysin never underestimated his enemies. To do so, to take risks could result in being caught, and such meant failure.

Slowly Kysin rose, and observed the cannon with his hands. He felt the barrels, the stands, the furnace and the base. He had come across one of these before. From Dondaken the dwarf, deep in the Keldagrim Mines, he had learnt that cannons were easily assembled, and there was no material strong enough to break them, except another cannon.

He had also learnt that there were no screws, bolts, nails or anything holding the cannon together. The pieces simply fitted into each other. With difficulty, he could take the cannon apart - only to have the noobs rebuild it come morning. Yet all pieces fitted together perfectly, they all need each other to work... If one piece was lost or... or taken, the cannon would be useless.

Kysin dropped his toolbox, and set to work dismantling the cannon. He had decided to take the stand, it being the lightest. (But still weighing over twenty kilos) He painstakingly lifted off the barrels and the furnace, and placed them quietly in the yard.

After every small move, he paused and listened. It took him about two and a half hours before the barrels and furnace were lying safely on the ground. Great. Now he just had to lug 20 kilograms worth of cannon stand south and he could rest and let the real heroes take over. He picked up the stand, put it over his shoulder, and walked south.

His plan was to take as direct a path as possible. He weaved in and out of the tents, painfully aware of every sound his weighted footsteps made, of every patch of moonlight that glinted off the stand. Then, ahead of him, he saw fire. He smiled inwardly.

The hero guild's pet blue dragon was just ahead of him. He would dump the stand deep beneath the guild, and trust the noobs would never think to look there. Maybe he'd bury them even, in the cage where the blue dragon was normally kept.

He ran forwards and a little west of the flames, and reached the heroes guild door. He paused, and turned back towards the illuminated scene. The blue dragon was going berserk. She was breathing fire everywhere, and all the nearby pine trees were inflamed.

The noob's absence at camp was explained here. There was about forty noobs attacking the one dragon. But their spells, arrows and swords weren't affecting the mythical fury at all. Kysin turned his back on the scene, opened the Heroes guild door, and walked in.

He quickly ran for the ladder down, and jumped. He dropped the few metres, landing safely despite the large encumbrance on his back. He jogged to the cage where the dragon was normally kept, with every intention of burying the stand here. But no, any invader worth the title would dig the place up in search of dragon's gold.

Instead, he followed the tunnel someway, and came to the small coal mine. He dumped the stand at the bottom of the mine, and shoved the piled dirt on top of it. When he had finished, there was no trace that there had ever been a coal mine been there, or a coal mine with a cannon stand at the bottom of it.

Kysin sat down on the filled-in coal mine, and rested. He allowed himself a few minutes, before rising, and heading towards the ladder he had descended; the only entry and exit out of the tunnel. He climbed swiftly, and arrived on ground level.

Outside the front of the guild, he could still see fire, and the magnificent blue dragon. He decided to continue upstairs, and from there onto the balcony where he would drop down into the hero guild's backyard thus avoiding the heat, light and chaos out front. He chased up the stairs, and sprinted to the balcony.

So intent was he on continuing this last lap of his mission, that his guard was down by only that little bit. He was so concentrating on getting from the top of the stairs to over the balcony edge as fast as possible that nothing else mattered - annoyingly at that one time where nothing else did.

He had reached the balcony doors, and in a single, fluid motion had them open and would've been over the edge within the next half-second. Had not the weapon seller of the guild been there. Had not he mistaken Kysin for the enemy.

But as fate would have it Helemos, the retired hero who sold dragon battleaxes and maces was there, wielding a perfect example of his stock. He brought the battleaxe down crashing on the place where Kysin's head was. But some sixth instinct forced Kysin to do what he always did when threatened. Always, hide. Drop into the shadows.

He crashed onto his belly, and would've snaked into the shadows outside but for the axe of Helemos. It came crashing down on Kysin's unprotected backbone, cleaving it as easily as it would cut soft butter. Kysin's eyes grew bright, then they glazed over...